The only reason the USA does not have a super junk rating is because we have more/better ships, missles and jets than anyone else. If we had a military the size of Britain's, we would be wishing for Zimbabwe's rating.

There is no reason to pay back about 40% of the debt since it is owed to us. If they do pay it back, other things that get money will suffer; thus, causing us to suffer which will hurt the economy. Thus, you don't pay it back until economy booms.

quote:Compare US debt/GDP ratio with that of other "junk" countries and you explain to me why ours is so great.

You're looking at that in a vacuum. We still have the largest financial markets in the world, have the highest GDP for a single nation, and have the highest innovation for any country. We also have much less political risk than emerging markets (even though the current situation makes that hard to believe), we have real prospects for growth unlike Europe, and we have a huge amount of natural resources unlike Japan.

quote:The only reason the USA does not have a super junk rating is because we have more/better ships, missles and jets than anyone else. If we had a military the size of Britain's, we would be wishing for Zimbabwe's rating.

The creditworthiness of our debt really has nothing to do with our missles. That statement is just flat out incorrect.

We owe somewhere around 11 trillion to other countries, I think. Don't quote me. And that's to over 40 countries; so despite popular belief, other countries actually don't want us to fail because it will also hurt them. (Not only Cus of debt; other reasons too).